Did you know your thoughts affect your health? Really impact you physically? You’ve heard it said we live in a mental world. The indications that support this statement are many.

Case in point:

In the post Your Birthday Can Kill You Newsmax Health shares interesting details from research published in the Annals of Epidemiology. “Overall, the research revealed a 13.8 percent greater probability people will die on the day they were born, said the report.”

If fixating on your birthday causes stress and/or readies you “for a possible major life event on that day,” can’t you assume your thought is a key factor to your health?

Isn’t it in fact a mental world if unhealthy thinking causes illness? And, if unhealthy thinking causes illness, even death, but healthy thinking can promote and protect your health, then shouldn’t you, by all means, think healthy?

What is healthy thinking? Believe it or not, in my Christian and mental healing practice, I’ve found that the less you think about the body the better. When overly concerned with the body, you may not be recognizing the real you.

The prescription of a master healer some 2000 years ago was this: Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.” This radical-care plan of Jesus’ never ignored anyone’s physical or mental problems. Just the opposite; the Bible indicates that Jesus had a stellar track record when it came to caring for the sick.

Perhaps Jesus’ success centered on his ability to focus on the spiritual selfhood of those needing help. Could this mean that a more spiritual focus allows God’s love and spiritual laws to govern you mentally and physically?

Research seems to indicate that spiritual awareness does promote health.

For example, Jeff Levin, in his book God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality Healing Connection, writes, “The best study conducted to date on the topic of religious attendance and health found the most amazing results. It showed that the protective effects of frequent participation in church can last a lifetime. … Published in the American Journal of Public Health, [one] study found that frequent religious attenders had greater survival rates — that is, lower mortality — that extended over a twenty-eight-year period. Frequent religious attendance in 1965 was still reducing the risk of dying in 1994.”

Another health explorer is finding thought to be an important key to your health:

Lissa Rankin, MD, in a blog post You’re Healed If You Think You Are, writes, “As research for my upcoming book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself, I have been digging deep into the medical literature, going back as far as the 1920’s into medical journals in order to find cold, hard science to prove what I have long believed – that we hold within us self-healing superpowers that are stronger than any chemotherapy and more effective than any surgery. …Your state of mind greatly affects the state of your body.”

Since it appears that your thought is a key factor to your health, it may benefit you the most to contemplate the body less and health and happiness more. Consider recognizing yourself as healthy because spiritual facts declare that you are. Your spiritual thinking just may be that healing superpower.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s columns originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/